


hearts are made to be broken

by youheldyourbreath



Category: Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: F/M, meet again after high school, spideychelle 2020, the worst case scenario of the Beck fallout
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:34:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24897751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youheldyourbreath/pseuds/youheldyourbreath
Summary: "You know Peter Parker?" Her editor says it like an accusation."I knew Peter Parker," she corrects her smoothly."We have an exclusive with him. Its the ten year anniversary of the Beck incident." Her editor pushes further. "I want you to write it."
Relationships: Michelle Jones/Peter Parker
Comments: 28
Kudos: 180
Collections: Spideychelle Week 2020





	hearts are made to be broken

Their relationship is over before it really begins. 

The summer after Beck, Peter disappears. He leaves his friends behind. Queens. MJ. 

It stings for a long time. The first heartbreak always does. But eventually, Michelle starts to move on.

When Peter's name is cleared, three years after his identity is cast out to the dogs, her heart doesn't feel like it will fall out of her shoes to see his face plastered on every newspaper in New York. She is even happy for him. It must have been hard, she thinks, to suffer half-truths for all of that time. 

And when Spider-Man starts to swing through the New York streets once more she is grateful. New York City needs Peter Parker. 

But Michelle Jones doesn't. 

Not anymore. 

Maybe that is growing up. Learning to let go of the people that wound you. Whatever it is-- maturity or fortitude-- Michelle lives a full life without him. 

* * *

The hefty draft of the paper drops on her desk. The bullpen continues to zip around moving as speedy as the news cycle. Michelle barely bats an eye. She swivels her chair to face Kate's pinched face and drones, "What do you want, Cushing?" 

"You know Peter Parker?" Her editor says it like an accusation. 

"I _knew_ Peter Parker," she corrects her smoothly. Michelle leans back in her creaky chair and pulls her tired glasses from her face. They drop lamely on the littered mahogany desk. 

Her editor rolls her eyes. She perches herself on the edge of her desk and puts on a show of asking a rhetorical question, "You've been a reporter at the Times for what? Three years now?" 

"Four." 

"Four years," Kate repeats. "And you never thought to mention the fact that you know Spider-Man?"

Michelle feels an unwelcome tick jump in her jaw. She hasn't thought about Peter Parker in a long time. Not really. He is an abstract thought on occasion when she shrugs on an old Midtown shirt on laundry day or when she sees an article about Spider-Man dashed across the pages of the Times. Sometimes she sees him on her morning commute chasing some bad guy or other. Still. The figure she sees is a behemoth, more myth than man, and Michelle Jones knew a boy. The boy she knew was kind and noble and had kissed her with such hopeful innocence once upon a very long time ago. 

She picks up her cast-aside glasses for something to do. Her hands itch. "Peter Parker went to my high school. Tons of kids knew him at Midtown."

"But none of those kids work for me." 

Her tempered resolve snaps. And so does she. "What do you want, Kate?"

Kate Cushing smiles. It is sharp. Like a blood-hound. Always sniffing out a story. Michelle does not have the energy to be irritated. After all, she knows that look. She has worn it herself on occasion. Reporters love a good story. 

"We have an exclusive with him. Its the ten year anniversary of the Beck incident."

Michelle splinters. She can't help it. It has been ten years since the bridge and his kiss. She remembers tasting the ash and smoke and something sweet, too. Uniquely Peter. Time is a fucking menace. 

Her editor pushes further. "I want you to write it." 

* * *

The thing about seeing Peter Parker again after ten years is that no amount of planning can prepare her for seeing him face-to-face. 

She is a grown-up. She has endured heartbreak a hundred times over. Peter Parker is not special. Sure, he was the first boy to break her heart, but he was not the last. And Michelle Jones is not a sixteen year old girl anymore. She can handle high school. High school is so unimportant in the grand scheme of her life. 

But then, he blows it. 

He smiles. 

Michelle feels something gentle and fragile, something she buried a long time ago, ache. It splits her down the middle and makes her feel small. She is losing him all over again. MJ is calling him over and over and over again and he doesn't pick up until one day his mailbox is full. He never comes back. 

The sixteen year old girl in her heart, the one she protects because, _poor girl_ , she doesn't know better yet, wants to give him back that broken necklace he carried all over Europe for her. _Take it_ , she would have said, if he ever cared enough to come back to Queens, _I lied. I don't like it better broken. Broken hurts._

Instead, she says, "Peter Parker. Long time." 

He smiles with his eyes and dimples and lopsided mouth. "Michelle Jones. I can't believe its you." 

* * *

It turns out Peter Parker is as charming as he was back in school, which is to say he is a total disaster. As they settle for their interview, he manages to knock over a glass of water and bite his tongue when he eats his donut. 

She raises a cool eyebrow at him. "Peter Tingle not working or...?"

He flushes a pretty pink. "Spidey-sense, actually. You and May with the Peter Tingle." 

MJ riffles around her weathered bag for her notepad. She resolutely clicks her pen and starts to scribble. "May. You're talking about May Parker. Your Aunt, correct?"

His eyebrow furrows. He has the audacity to look hurt. She can't help but pocket her childish victory. "Why are you talking like you don't know May? She used to stock your favorite tea in our cabinet." He takes another bite of his donut. This bite is marginally more successful. "She still does, actually." 

The ballpoint of her pen bleeds on the page. She exerts more pressure to focus. The page be damned. "Doing my due diligence."

"No, you're acting like we don't know each other." 

"We don't." 

His nostrils flare. "Yes, we do." 

"I haven't seen you in ten years, Peter." 

"And so what?" he says. She recognizes the iron of a man in his tone. He is not a boy anymore. Somewhere she knew that, like how people know time passes in theory, but the Peter that exists in her memory has never really grown up. It stops her for a moment. The man continues, "You're going to pretend we weren't friends?" 

"I don't know you anymore." He drops his eyes to the half-eaten donut. MJ takes the opportunity to track all of the changes in his face. His hair is still thick but she is surprised to spot licks of silver dotted between strands. He is not taller, but he is more broad. The willowy stature of boyhood has been all but stripped from him. There are echoes of the boy, but she is right. She doesn't know this man. 

He flexes his calloused hands flat on the table. She notices the glaring absence of a wedding band. MJ does not bother acknowledging how that makes her feel. "Look," he starts slowly, "I did a lot I regret back when we were kids. But when I heard it was _you_. Jesus, MJ. I felt like I was sixteen again. Like I was back on that bridge." 

Her chest constricts and her eyes bristle, hot with unshed tears. The girl in her, the one that she had taken great pains to shelter from rainy days, revives. 

MJ snaps her notebook shut. "I can't," she says resolutely. 

"MJ--" 

"I can't." She shoves her notebook into her bag. "You did what you had to do. I don't blame you anymore, Peter. But whatever this is, whatever you were hoping for, I can't. I just can't." 

"Michelle." 

"I'll tell Kate to assign you another reporter if you still want to do the exclusive. We're done here." 

* * *

Kate finds her in the dark bullpen that night. Michelle doesn't bother turning on the lights. The glow of her computer is more comforting than the harsh fluorescents. 

"The Parker exclusive?" she asks.

Michelle shakes her head. 

The two women leave it at that. 

* * *

Peter Parker was a boy when she knew him. The boy she knew was awkward and earnest and certainly not persistent. He left things well enough alone. She wondered then if that had to do with his secret. If he didn't get to close to people, they didn't have a chance of getting close to the secret. 

The man doesn't have secrets anymore. They were blown wide open when he was a boy by a man who wanted to hurt him. 

Without the secrets, the cautious Peter Parker as good as dies. 

Or that is Michelle's running theory when she arrives home after wallowing at the office to find him slumped outside her apartment door. 

She flares with anger. "What are you doing here?" MJ demands. 

He has the good conscience to look ashamed. "I'm sorry." 

"Are you stalking me or something?" 

"Please, MJ," he rolls his eyes at her, which the Peter before never would have done. It blows her back on her ass for a second. "I have access to billion dollar technology. I've known where you've lived for years." He raises his hand to silence her oncoming rant. "And before you start, I keep tabs on anyone my enemies might think are good collateral. I won't apologize for keeping you safe." 

She grinds her teeth and says, "What do you want, Peter?" 

He labors to his feet. She has the impulse to kick his shin. MJ is so mad and hurt and bewildered she cannot sort through her emotions fast enough to process them. Damn him, are the only words that are coming through the onslaught of fresh feeling. Damn him. _Damn him_. 

"I did a lot wrong back then," he says. "And I can only say I'm sorry. I should've said that first when you showed up today. But I stuck my fucking foot in my mouth. I always did around you. Still do, I guess." He rakes a shaky hand through his hair. It is desperately vulnerable looking. "I dunno. I suppose I saw you and the years melted away in my heart. But I can't erase those years. Or the hurt I might have caused you." 

"You did," she agrees.

"Did what?

"Hurt me," MJ clarifies. 

His face crumples. "Yeah. I know." 

All of her anger flows out of her at once. She doesn't bother stopping it. It feels good to be destructive for once. "I didn't want protection. I wanted you." She wipes hastily at her face. Michelle Jones will not cry over Peter Parker. Not anymore. "What do you want, Peter?" she asks bluntly. 

"A lot," he says earnestly. And he sounds like the boy again. Her heart is a weak instrument. It strains for his embrace. Still. After all of these years. "But you were right. You don't know me anymore."

He stares at her.   
She doesn't look away. 

He offers her his hand. "Would you like to?" 


End file.
